Where is Internet Explorer 9 for Windows XP?

March 17th 2011

Internet Explorer 9

With Microsoft's recent success in selling 10 million Kinect, one would think Microsoft truly understands what the users are asking for. But, that's not the case (unfortunately). Microsoft is now claiming 2.3 million downloads for Internet Explorer 9 within the first 24 hours. A great milestone indeed. But there is no independent verification.

The browser has received great feedback from the community. Internet Explorer has the capability to support "Do Not Track" feature. This feature transmits a header to the website indicating if the user agrees to have their online activities tracked.

The FTC has supported some kind of "do not track" in an effort to protect consumer privacy against increasingly automated and expansive information-gathering by marketing organizations. As outlined by a speech delivered earlier this month by David C. Vladeck, director of the Federal trade commission Bureau of Consumer Protection, "the FTC has envisioned Do Not Track as a one-stop-shop where consumers can exercise a choice not to be tracked, and where marketers would have to respect their choice."

Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for Internet Explorer, said Microsoft favored industry self-regulation, given all the third parties and complexity involved, although he explained that any application will need to include much more than just marketers. "It is important to note that while tracking and advertising and profiling overlap, they are not the same," he said. "Nothing about Tracking Protection or the broadly discussed Do Not Track User Preference is specific to ads or ad content."

Microsofts Internet Explorer 9 browser also supports HTML5 video in both the industry-standard H.264 format and the more recent WebM format.

In a March 16 article, Dean Hachamovitch, talked about the HTML5 video format support and encouraged users to test the new WebM capability at the IE Test Drive site.

According to Ryan Gavin, senior director of IE business and marketing, "Microsoft would not put IE9 hardware acceleration features in the present version of its browser, IE8, or back port IE9 to older PCs running Windows XP."

So this means that over fifty percent of the computers, according to StatCounter – will be unable to run Microsoft's latest browser (IE9), but Windows 7 users are on the rise. Windows 7 debuted just over a year ago and has grabbed nearly a fifth of all computers on the Web in that time.